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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.

Edmund Burke

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Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Service
Kings
People
Adulation
Corrupts
Receiver
Giver
Flattery

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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War is the matter which fills all history and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.
Edmund Burke
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To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.
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An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
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Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
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The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.
Edmund Burke
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Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Edmund Burke
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This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.
Edmund Burke
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
Edmund Burke
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The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires
Edmund Burke
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Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.
Edmund Burke
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Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant.
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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
Edmund Burke
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Evil prevails when good men fail to act.
Edmund Burke
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The truly sublime is always easy, and always natural.
Edmund Burke
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Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation.
Edmund Burke
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It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Edmund Burke
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One source of the sublime is infinity.
Edmund Burke
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It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.
Edmund Burke
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The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
Edmund Burke